Death By 1000 Cuts: What's Secretly Destroying Your Business Productivity?

Productivity. It’s a key concern for all business owners. Whatever sector you work in, there are a few common factors that affect how productive it’s possible for your business to be at any given time.

There will always be factors outside the business to consider, like industry regulations, your business’ location and the infrastructure available to you.

However, there are a few factors that are within your power to control.

You know that your people are a key factor. After picking the best people for your team, you’ll need to look after them. Conditions have to be right for people to be productive. Mentally, they need to be motivated to work; Physically, they need to have adequate space to do their jobs effectively.

Management of your staff is important, and the way you oversee people and processes to iron out any issues (ideally before they become work-stopping problems).

Everything needs to be carefully organised, taking into account current demands, issues, and what your plans are for the future of the business.

All of these considerations are obvious.

On closer consideration are a number of factors that can interfere with a business’ productivity in ways that aren’t as immediately clear.

Given my area of expertise, it should be becoming clear where I’m going with this.

When you’re taking stock of technological issues that affect your productivity, internet performance and resilience might not be your first thought. An unstable or insufficient internet connection or WiFi network is something that’s often tolerated or ignored as a feature of your office life.

It may be that you find yourself spending longer than average waiting for internet pages to load, or experience lags and delays during conference calls. Perhaps your connection cuts out for five minutes, or ten– perhaps for longer.

Complacency in the face of inadequate internet provision can be very costly. A slow or unreliable internet connection or patchy WiFi network can be a kind of ‘death by 1000 cuts’ for productivity in your office.

Over time, seconds and minutes of waiting add up to hours of down-time, during which your staff are unable to do their jobs.

Not only is that costing you money, but it’s also a huge frustration for anyone who’s trying to get a job done smoothly and efficiently– with possibly calamitous effects on staff mood and motivation.

In the age of the smartphone, tablet and cloud service, WiFi and internet connectivity isn’t something any business can neglect.

The bottom line is that whatever your industry, to keep your business running smoothly you need a network you can rely on.